Dungeon Run: Wind Down

Winding down the Dungeon Run arc with this strip and an epilogue to follow. There are matters left unresolved and we’ll get to those threads in future arcs. In some cases, the stories are marathons, not sprints.

The second panel today is my nod to the old school art in AD&D modules. Hopefully that translates well, as I plan to use it for any time Pops gives an example. It’s a fun exercise.

Discussion (70) ¬

In some countries they would kill you for a pun that bad, especially if you were playing one of the spy RPGs I used to do now and then. Yeah but I was one of those old school players and I used to play with the great and all powerful Gary Gygax himself. To be honest when I first met the man I didn’t even know who he was. My Dungeon Master had brought him into a few of our campaigns at the time and it wasn’t until later that I finally found out who he was. Hey I was nine when I started playing the game to begin with. In either case the fact that he wanted to cheat and didn’t says even more firmly that it is beyond more than likely that Dove did indeed cheat or attempt to cheat to win the game.

Actually if your are a really hacked off DM you can use this real old school Trick. A Party member who was really greedy (walk into dangerous and really easy to identify traps and attacking way too tough monsters because they have stuff, looting bodies of characters waiting to be raised) was with us when we were attacked by a very high level wizard. Normally not a problem but when you are at the end of a run, nearly out of spells, out of reusable healing, low on hitpoints and carrying loads of treasure not an encounter anyone wanted. As we were leaving we passed a room with a single gold coin on a column, in the center of a room with a glowing light on it. All of us but our greedy friend went “trap” and moved on. Not him he went in and grabbed the coin. All passages within 50 feet close up (trapping us) and several monsters emerge (3 hour tale for another time) and finally only 3 of 6 are alive. The coin was destroyed (to Mr. Greed’s howls) but the passages would not reopen. Using one of his last spells our wizard determined that we needed an enchanted coin to be replaced on the column to deactivate the Trap. When Mr Greed demanded that the Wizard replace the coin (since he disintegrated the original) he decided to do just that. Using his last scroll he polymorphed Mr. Greed into a gold coin and placed him on the column. Trap deactivates and we paint the door shut with Nulzur’s Mystical pigments. (now looks just like the rest of the wall and leave.

After a few seconds of death threats, he grumbles he needs a new character and the DM says reminding him of the policy of no more than “one living character” in our campaign and that he was merely a coin and not dead. After some serious soul searching he apologized and the DM reversed the ruling in a couple of weeks

Soooooo not exactly the speech I was expecting. Less of the “I know it’s hard, but you did the right thing,” and more of the “Wow, I can’t believe you didn’t just invoke the chunky salsa rule the first time he mouthed off. I sure would have!”

My father told me about how one of their friend played a tanky warrior who always stood off to the side and forced the casters to, as they put it, “Hit the monsters with their stick” so one of their regular DM friends got sick of his shit and literally dropped the right hand of god on him, and explicitly said he can’t be revived or reincarnated

Well, if he was doing it to be a dick then that is completely appropriate. If the casters were constantly being dicks to him (such as insulting him for his character having a low int score or something) then they kind of had it coming.

“What’s that? You want me, the dumb tank with an int score of 10 to take the punishments these guys are dishing out? I have an idea. Throw one of your books at him, nerdlinger.”

Seems a tad incongruous with the previous update. But I suppose it’s his dad checking “did you cheat?” and when he found there wasn’t cheating involved he’s lightening the mood with rocks fall, assholes die.

I actually thought it was a little odd at first glance as well. Then I remembered how Sam’s Dad has behaved in the past. and I believe his dad sees a difference between cheating to give another player an advantage over someone else,regardless of how what kind of person the disadvantaged player is, (a clear rule violation) and enforcing a rule about respecting players using an in-game deux ex machina such as rocks fall.

The form of the allegation doesn’t matter really. Whether a theoretical cheating Sam cheated by ensuring his buddies get into the final level (which given that rolls were out in the open doesn’t seem likely – there were four GMs for the first part (even if one ended his bit very early on – probably Pops was the GM there!) or by “ensuring” divine intervention, the allegation remains.

No. I think Dove accused Sam of cheating in having the Chorus Golem show up at all. Of course, I personally as a GM would have screwed over Dove at the moment he tried that bullshit (ie, no Diplomacy roll in the middle of combat) but it’s Sam’s game. He allowed the Diplomacy and then allowed Divine Intervention seeing that it made sense.

Doesn’t matter. Dove lucked out up until the moment of his character’s death.

Seeing I didn’t insult anyone, didn’t say the comic was horrible (it isn’t), or anything like that, why the [censored] would this be “kissing the ban” or be anywhere near a banning offense? What, is it a bannable offense to NOT give the author/artist constant praise even when there are elements in a comic that might be confusing?

Read what I said in my comment. Seems a tad incongruous from the previous comic. Then I went on to speculate as to how Pops was lightening the mood afterward. If my comment was a bannable offense then previous comments of mine, which were not constant complements, would have gotten me banned.

The cartoonist is an adult. He doesn’t need you or other fans to constantly rise to his defense at anything said which does not give him constant positive affirmations. If anything, your attempted bullying here by claiming I am close to being banned is derogatory toward the cartoonist by suggesting he cannot defend himself (which he can) is more damaging than anything said by someone who’s not a blind fan.

TL;DR: Let the cartoonist defend himself, and it’s not even needed in this case.

How ironic, considering you are replying to all of these as part of your hate-on concerning me. What, did I give a bad review of your favorite comic in the past? (Is that possible for me? I can only think of one review where I didn’t find anything redeeming about the comic and recommended against reading it. And that was a “comedy” comic making fun of bulimia.)

The fact that you take the stance that the cartoonist has to defend himself is why I don’t care for you. It sheds light on what I think your true intentions are…

You hide behind this position that you’re just trying to help Brian become better but you’re no authority on such things. Unless I’m mistaken…do you have a successful web comic? Unless you do, I question your position. Reading a bunch of comics isn’t the same as making one. You want to be a critic, fine. But a food critic doesn’t keep going back to the same restaurant week after week just to pick apart the dish. They don’t leave their reviews on the restaurant’s website…and they don’t go to the chef in front of everyone and tell them how to be better. At least not a professional critic…

The bottom line is this: These are Brian’s stories, characters and style. The arcs are going to play out at a speed and tone that he wants. The characters are going to do and say things and develop in a way that he deems fit. His art is going to evolve organically over a time that comfortable for him.

If you have a problem with any of those things…if you (or anyone) feel the need to incessantly criticize those things to the point of nitpicking, then just move the hell along.

I do have to say when I first became a Dungeon Master myself I might have had a few times I might have done what his old man said there myself. Yeah I might have, but I always found it was more fun to lead them around to a point where I knew they would destroy themselves in the end, it was always so much more satisfying when I set them up in the campaign and they burned themselves down.

Now I’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to figure out if an earth elemental with the runs would shit mud (earth + liquid) or magma (liquid earth). Great. And I still haven’t solved the puzzle of whether or not a fire elemental with the clap feels the burn when it pees.

There is nothing firm yet but lately between the spam (thankful for filters) and less than friendly atmosphere, I am deciding if having them is a distraction or not. I can take criticism just fine, it’s the nature of the beast (P.S. I will keep making the comics I want to make), but things have been tense down here in Comment Town between folks. I am easy to find regardless of whether or not I close them down, so I will think it over.

I think people simply require the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff when they read.
If you read something that leaves you a little miffed likely you should just walk away from the keyboard. It’s when people leave utterly malevolent comments that action should be taken.
A certain commenter of late’s just been taking the time to critique in their particular way, obviously in support enough to keep returning so obviously they feel something’s being done right. I’d just voice disagreement with their concerns at worst and move on.
Chafing myself on opinions is poor form, I consider my time a bit more worthwhile than that.

As long as there’s two people talking, there’s always going to be friction, in some way or the other, sooner or later. Removing comments is not going to improve their attitude. I haven’t commented before today, but I like reading comments, and I hope you don’t close them down because then everyone loses, you know?

If you want to take decisive action to improve the mood, you could try to talk to the people stirring up trouble rather than just canceling the party.

Thank you for keeping them open, for now at least. I don’t always comment, but when I want to I do enjoy being able to. Plus I’m not sure where I’d go nor how I would discuss this comic with others if the comments section died.

I think the one thing everyone seems to be missing is this was not just a friendly game, this was a tournament with a prize from being last man standing and one that, presumably, required an entry fee to get in. Now blue lighting (as the person who I learned D&D from called it) might be good jerk be gone in the former it is completely inappropriate in the latter. Now while Dove was out of line to mouth off like he did in a tournament setting Dove was fully within his rights to request to see the note that was passed, and the rolls to determine divine intervention on that scale should have been declared and made openly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not by any means taking Doves side here, however just making the point that Sam could have done a few things better.